Richard Reader Harris, K.C. (1847 – 25 March 1909) was a prominent English barrister, King's Counsel and

Master of the Bench A bencher or Master of the Bench is a senior member of an Inn of Court in England and Wales or the Inns of Court in Northern Ireland, or the Honorable Society of King's Inns in Ireland. Benchers hold office for life once elected. A bencher ca ...

Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and W ...

, who was also a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

minister, founder of the Pentecostal League of Prayer, and author of 34 Christian books. He is particularly remembered as an advocate of British Israelism, the belief that people of Western European descent are also the direct lineal descendants of the

Ten Lost Tribes The ten lost tribes were the ten of the Twelve Tribes of Israel that were said to have been exiled from the Kingdom of Israel after its conquest by the Neo-Assyrian Empire BCE. These are the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Ash ...

Professional career

He started his career as a civil engineer for the Great Western Railway (GWR) and Great Eastern Railway (GER), before taking a post as chief engineer to the

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. On his return to London in 1883 he trained for the

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, and was called at

, where he was later elected to the Bench.

Christian life

Early beliefs

Reader Harris drifted from the

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view of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

of his teens to join

Charles Bradlaugh Charles Bradlaugh (; 26 September 1833 – 30 January 1891) was an English political activist and atheist. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866, 15 years after George Holyoake had coined the term "secularism" in 1851. In 1880, Bradl ...

's Ethical Society. Bradlaugh, an atheist, mocked Christians who lived immoral lives while he lectured on

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texts and advocated that his audience abide by ideas expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. As a member of the

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...

wing of Bradlaugh's Ethical Society, Harris pledged not to smoke or drink.

Marriage & Christian Conversion

When Reader Harris married Mary Griffin Bristow in 1880, he converted to Christianity. At the same time the elevated social status of his wife's family brought him entry to the upper strata of

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

society.

Pentecostal League of Prayer

In 1891 both he and his wife founded the Pentecostal League of Prayer as "an interdenominational union of Christian people who, conscious of their own need, would join in prayer to fill believers with the Holy Spirit; revive Christian churches and spread scriptural holiness." Harris became a close friend of evangelist

Oswald Chambers Oswald Chambers (24 July 187415 November 1917) was an early-twentieth-century Scottish Baptist evangelist and teacher who was aligned with the Holiness Movement. He is best known for the daily devotional ''My Utmost for His Highest''. Youth an ...

. When the new League began publishing the ''Tongues of Fire'' magazine it became associated in the mind of the public with the emerging " tongues movement". Reader Harris claimed that the two had no connection other than their reference to the second chapter of the Book of Acts (Acts 2:6-12). In November 1907 he stated that:

There is nothing wrong with speaking in tongues; it was the privilege of the early Church, and it may be the privilege of any believer today.

Wife

His wife was a leader in her own right, which was uncommon but not unheard of for a woman in her day. Another more famous example was

Catherine Booth Catherine Booth (''née'' Mumford, 17 January 1829 – 4 October 1890) was co-founder of The Salvation Army, along with her husband William Booth. Because of her influence in the formation of The Salvation Army she was known as the 'Mothe ...

, who was also of Methodist background. Apart from having helped him start the League of Prayer, she was also an author who went under the name Mrs Reader Harris.

''Ten Lost Tribes''

In 1907 Reader Harris wrote his book "The Lost Tribes of Israel", which expressed his belief in the theory that the

Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

are descended from the

Such then are the Scriptures that appear to me to furnish strong evidence in favour of the contention of those who believe that in the Anglo-Saxon race God possesses today the descendants of the house of Israel. If this be true, it adds tremendously to our responsibilities, and opens before us in a way that no human tongue can describe, spiritual possibilities, temporal possibilities, national possibilities, and universal possibilities.

Death

On 25 March 1909 Reader Harris suffered a stroke and remained in a coma at his home in London and without regaining consciousness he died four days later at the age of sixty-one. On 6 April, two thousand people attempted to attend his funeral at

West Norwood Cemetery West Norwood Cemetery is a rural cemetery in West Norwood in London, England. It was also known as the South Metropolitan Cemetery. One of the first private landscaped cemeteries in London, it is one of the " Magnificent Seven" cemeteries of ...

. Hundreds stood outside.

External links

''The Lost Tribes of Israel''
excerpts from the book by Richard Reader Harris with links to other works by Pentecostal writers on the same subject. {{DEFAULTSORT:Reader Harris, Richard English Methodist ministers English Pentecostals English barristers British Israelism 1847 births 1909 deaths Burials at West Norwood Cemetery Members of Gray's Inn 19th-century English lawyers 19th-century Methodists